MY DEAR FRIEND: It is now above a fortnight since I have received a
letter from you. I hope, however, that you are well, but engrossed by the
business of Lord Albemarle’s ‘bureau’ in the mornings, and by business of
a genteeler nature in the evenings; for I willingly give up my own
satisfaction to your improvement, either in business or manners.
Here have been lately imported from Paris two gentlemen, who, I find,
were much acquainted with you there Comte Zinzendorf, and Monsieur
Clairant the Academician. The former is a very pretty man, well-bred, and
with a great deal of useful knowledge; for those two things are very
consistent. I examined him about you, thinking him a competent judge. He
told me, ‘que vous parliez l’Allemand comme un Allemand; que vous saviez
le droit public de l’empire parfaitement bien; que vous aviez le gout
sur, et des connoissances fort etendues’. I told him that I knew all this
very well; but that I wanted to know whether you had l’air, les manieres,
les attentions, en fin le brillant d’un honnete homme’: his answer was,
‘Mais oui en verite, c’est fort bien’. This, you see, is but cold in
comparison of what I do wish, and of what you ought to wish. Your friend
Clairant interposed, and said, ‘Mais je vous assure qu’il est fort poli’;
to which I answered, ‘Je le crois bien, vis-a-vis des Lapons vos amis; je
vous recuse pour juge, jusqu’a ce que vous ayez ete delaponne, au moins
dix ans, parmi les honnetes gens’. These testimonies in your favor are
such as perhaps you are satisfied with, and think sufficient; but I am
not; they are only the cold depositions of disinterested and unconcerned
witnesses, upon a strict examination. When, upon a trial, a man calls
witnesses to his character, and that those witnesses only say that they
never heard, nor do not know any ill of him, it intimates at best a
neutral and insignificant, though innocent character. Now I want, and you
ought to endeavor, that ‘les agremens, les graces, les attentions’, etc.,
should be a distinguishing part of your character, and specified of you
by people unasked. I wish to hear people say of you, ‘Ah qu’il est
aimable! Quelles manieres, quelles graces, quel art de Claire’! Nature,
thank God, has given you all the powers necessary; and if she has not
yet, I hope in God she will give you the will of exerting them.
I have lately read with great pleasure Voltaire’s two little histories of
‘Les Croisades’, and ‘l’Esprit Humain’; which I recommend to your
perusal, if you have not already read them. They are bound up with a most
poor performance called ‘Micromegas’, which is said to be Voltaire’s too,
but I cannot believe it, it is so very unworthy of him; it consists only
of thoughts stolen from Swift, but miserably mangled and disfigured. But
his history of the ‘Croisades’ shows, in a very short and strong light,
the most immoral and wicked scheme that was ever contrived by knaves, and
executed by madmen and fools, against humanity. There is a strange but
never-failing relation between honest madmen and skillful knaves; and
whenever one meets with collected numbers of the former, one may be very
sure that they are secretly directed by the latter. The popes, who have
generally been both the ablest and the greatest knaves in Europe, wanted
all the power and money of the East; for they had all that was in Europe
already. The times and the minds favored their design, for they were dark
and uniformed; and Peter the Hermit, at once a knave and a madman, was a
fine papal tool for so wild and wicked an undertaking. I wish we had good
histories of every part of Europe, and indeed of the world, written upon
the plan of Voltaire’s ‘de l’Esprit Humain’; for, I own, I am provoked at
the contempt which most historians show for humanity in general: one
would think by them that the whole human species consisted but of about a
hundred and fifty people, called and dignified (commonly very
undeservedly too) by the titles of emperors, kings, popes, generals, and
ministers.
I have never seen in any of the newspapers any mention of the affairs of
the Cevennes, or Grenoble, which you gave me an account of some time ago;
and the Duke de Mirepoix pretends, at least, to know nothing of either.
Were they false reports? or does the French court choose to stifle them?
I hope that they are both true, because I am very willing that the cares
of the French government should be employed and confined to themselves.
Your friend, the Electress Palatine, has sent me six wild boars’ heads,
and other ‘pieces de sa chasse’, in return for the fans, which she
approved of extremely. This present was signified to me by one Mr.
Harold, who wrote me a letter in very indifferent English; I suppose he
is a Dane who has been in England.
Mr. Harte came to town yesterday, and dined with me to-day. We talked you
over; and I can assure you, that though a parson, and no member ‘du beau
monde’, he thinks all the most shining accomplishments of it full as
necessary for you as I do. His expression was, THAT IS ALL THAT HE WANTS;
BUT IF HE WANTS THAT, CONSIDERING HIS SITUATION AND DESTINATION, HE MIGHT
AS WELL WANT EVERYTHING ELSE.
This is the day when people reciprocally offer and receive the kindest
and the warmest wishes, though, in general, without meaning them on one
side, or believing them on the other. They are formed by the head, in
compliance with custom, though disavowed by the heart, in consequence of
nature. His wishes upon this occasion are the best that are the best
turned; you do not, I am sure, doubt the truth of mine, and therefore I
will express them with a Quaker-like simplicity. May this new year be a
very new one indeed to you; may you put off the old, and put on the new
man! but I mean the outward, not the inward man. With this alteration, I
might justly sum up all my wishes for you in these words:
Dii tibi dent annos, de to nam caetera sumes.
This minute, I receive your letter of the 26th past, which gives me a
very disagreeable reason for your late silence. By the symptoms which you
mention of your illness, I both hope and believe that it was wholly owing
to your own want of care. You are rather inclined to be fat, you have
naturally a good stomach, and you eat at the best tables; which must of
course make you plethoric: and upon my word you will be very subject to
these accidents, if you will not, from time to time, when you find
yourself full, heated, or your head aching, take some little, easy,
preventative purge, that would not confine you; such as chewing a little
rhubarb when you go to bed at night; or some senna tea in the morning.
You do very well to live extremely low, for some time; and I could wish,
though I do not expect it, that you would take one gentle vomit; for
those giddinesses and swimmings in the head always proceed from some
foulness of the stomach. However, upon the whole, I am very glad that
your old complaint has not mixed itself with this, which I am fully
convinced arises simply from your own negligence. Adieu.